China Herald: Jiang Zemin joins leadership transition

Victor Shih

Former president and party leader Jiang Zemin has made appearances last week, joining the mayhem surrounding China's leadership transition, later this year. Political analyst Victor Shih gives his take in this article for Bloomberg.

Jiang, who led the Communist Party from 1989 to 2002, met with [Starbucks CEO Howard] Schultz a week after former Chongqing Communist Party leader Bo Xilai was suspended from the ruling Politburo. Jiang’s presence in Beijing suggests he is taking part in the leadership transition, complicating the succession process in the world’s second-biggest economy, said Victor Shih, a professor who focuses on Chinese finance and politics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

“He has shown the world conclusively that he remains in good health and that he remains part of the equation for the 18th Party Congress,” Shih said in an e-mail. “This will make complete domination by any particular faction difficult, despite recent events.”

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Victor Shih is also a financial analyst, looking at China's debts here at Storify.